Congressional Budget Office: Health Care Law Will Cost $1.8 Trillion

Posted by State Rep. Mike Sanders40sc on August 10, 2012

By State Rep. Mike Sanders

Conservatives were proven correct in stating that the federal health care law would cost more than originally estimated. The Congressional Budget Office recently upped their 10-year cost estimate of the law from $800 billion to $1.8 trillion. Many still believe that the estimate is low.

When an individual maxes out their credit cards, spending far more than they can afford, they end up paying more money to the credit card companies and less of their money is available to cover their needs and to address opportunities that arise. In the same manner, we as a nation are committing ourselves to an unsustainable level of spending that will create additional costs, which will not be used for services or a crisis, but instead simply pay off the deficit we continue to feed.

The new expenses of the health care law come at a time when many other programs such as Social Security are already facing funding problems. The more we spend on this health care initiative, the less we will have available to shore up other programs.

A lesser known, but equally exasperating change created by the health care law is the elimination of a deduction for individuals with high medical bills. Those of us who receive a punishingly high bill can now look forward to paying more to help support the president’s agenda.

Although I completely disagreed with the Supreme Court decision, the silver lining was that the justices gave us the ability to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. I along with other state lawmakers will opt out of this unsustainable expansion and will also avoid any efforts to set up a statewide exchange.

As always, I would love to hear from you. I can be reached at the Capitol at (405) 557-7407.